Educating with Aloha: Reflections from the Heart on Teaching and Learning

A Passion for Education. How do we change the way teachers teach and children learn?

In Educating with Aloha: Reflections from the Heart on Teaching and Learning—her second book drawing upon the wisdom of 45 years as an educator—Jan Iwase offers fresh insights into creating caring school communities. Packed with succinct advice and thought-provoking anecdotes, Educating with Aloha is Iwase’s follow-up to Leading with Aloha: From the Pineapple Fields to the Principal’s Office, her 2019 book that laid the groundwork for filling schools and classrooms with happy students, empowered teachers and involved parents. A longtime Hawai‘i public school teacher and principal, she envisions a system of learning in which teachers and students alike develop a passion for education. For Iwase, “Educating with Aloha” is more than a catchphrase; it embodies her career-long method of cultivating the best in adults and children through respectful interaction and cooperative effort.

A one-time district elementary principal of the year, Iwase rose through the ranks of Hawai‘i’s educational system, beginning in the Head Start program and ending her teaching years as principal of Daniel K. Inouye Elementary School. “After Leading with Aloha, I was often asked when I would write a second book,” Iwase recalls. “Frankly, I had not given it any thought, but when COVID-19 hit, I found myself with the time to think and reflect. As a retired educator, one of my major concerns was how this pandemic would impact our students, teachers, school leaders, and schools in general. This is the perfect time to discuss how to make schools more relevant in the 21st century.”

“Wow! Wow! Wow! This gem of a book underscores how much we can learn from the wisdom and insights of our remarkable educators, especially from an author who writes so powerfully. This book will engage you, inform you, and inspire you, as Jan Iwase draws on four decades of in-the-field experience and illuminates us on what it means to educate.”

—Ted Dintersmith, film producer of “Most Likely to Succeed” and author of What School Could Be

“As educators we realize that our careers are made up of individual stories that have touched our lives, because our students were the main characters in each one. In Educating with Aloha, Jan Iwase provides us with short stories around some very tough topics that educators face all too often. Iwase’s writing, like her leadership, rolls out with a sense of humanity and caring that we all can learn from these days.”

—Peter DeWitt, Ed.D., leadership coach and author of the blog “Finding Common Ground,” Education Week

Softcover, 176 pp.
Author: Jan Iwase
Release Date: August 2021

Connect with the author at her website